Bildung and Literacy in Subject Danish: Changing L1 Education

The chapter contributes a case-study of the L1 subject Danish in the light
of respectively Bildung and literacy, concluding in a discussion of these as perspectives of L1 education. Departing from an introduction to the core notion of Bildung, a disciplinary-didactic conceptualization of school subjects is presented and applied to subject Danish at the turn of the millennium. The study develops an argument for the relevance of the dyadic construction of the subject as an interpretative and meaning-making Bildung project connected to notions of perspective and voice. Finally, the contemporary and wider relevance of these findings are discussed. The contemporary curricular representation of subject Danish appears to confirm the findings. It may also be regarded as a bold project of didactization of subject Danish under pressure by globalizing trends of media culture and literacy demands. The discussion of these readings is related to the more general discussion of the import of the category of literacy, next to language and literature, in Nordic and wider international L1 curricula. The issue at stake is whether literacy could be regarded as a Bildung concept, possibly replacing Bildung as a general aim of L1 subjects. In conclusion, the chapter argues that the conceptualization of Bildung developed in the present analysis of subject Danish may contribute to a fruitful integration of literacy in L1 subjects since it provides arguments for the advancement of specific L1 disciplinary-didactic aims of students’ literacy development.